


my nightmares will have nightmares

by SongOfWizardry



Series: when i sing, you sing harmonies [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Caleb Widogast Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Empire Siblings - Freeform, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Late Night Conversations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26144593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SongOfWizardry/pseuds/SongOfWizardry
Summary: caleb had not been planning on running into anyone on a one a.m. nightmare-fueled walk, but the universe (and beauregard lionett) seemed to have different plans for him.[or: the empire siblings and a late night conversation]
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & Caleb Widogast
Series: when i sing, you sing harmonies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1898512
Comments: 10
Kudos: 95





	my nightmares will have nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings: non-graphic descriptions of burning, nightmares, brief self-harm

The room is dark, and Caleb keeps his eyes fixed on the glowing yellow face of his digital watch. He’s trying to count the flashing second separators, but counting is easy, and it doesn’t take up enough of his brain. There’s that familiar feeling in his chest – like something has shoved its way through his ribcage and taken out a lump of him, just where his heart should be – and everything feels hollow and his breaths don’t go deep enough and he thinks he can hear the whistling sound of his breath escaping from between his ribs. 

He shifts, pressing his hand against his chest, just to make sure there isn’t actually a hole there, but of course there isn’t, and the feeling isn’t going anywhere, and he just feels more ridiculous. The numbers on his watch change, from 01:03 to 01:04. “I am getting too old for this,” he says. Frumpkin, curled up on his spot at the end of the bed, raises his head at that, and blinks. Caleb sighs and gives up on falling asleep, and pulls his legs up closer to him, shifting to sit against the headboard. The watch reads 01:05. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says to Frumpkin, who’s still watching him, yellow eyes steady. Talking out loud hurts slightly, there’s something stinging in his mouth. “Go back to sleep, ja?” Frumpkin sets his head back down, obediently, but doesn’t close his eyes again. 

Caleb spends a few more moments (a minute and a half, by his watch) staring back at Frumpkin, before the combination of the silence and stillness and the coppery taste in his mouth where he’s bitten through his cheek start taking over more of his brain, and he’s heading back into nightmare-memory-land. Firmly, once, he digs the fingernails of his right hand into the fraying bandages right on the wrist of his left, looks at the watch (it reads 01:08) and makes a decision. He needs a walk. Frumpkin watches him as he grabs his shoes and shoves his feet into them, clumsily, pulls his coat over his pyjamas, and as he stands up, he pauses to scratch Frumpkin on the head. The cat closes his eyes, pushes his head into Caleb’s hand, and for two breaths, Caleb doesn’t feel the hollow space in his chest as much. “Go back to sleep, Frumpkin,” he says, and then grabs the keys to the dorm room and leaves. 

The rest of the building is blessedly quiet, and Caleb makes it out onto the street without running into anyone else. When he steps outside, Caleb is hit with a rush of chilly air, and he stops to pull his coat tighter around him and check his watch (01:11). He tries looking up at the sky for a moment, squinting, but it’s overcast – of fucking course it’s overcast – and there are no stars visible. So, counting his steps, he makes his way down the street.

There are four residential student buildings on this street. There are also nine streetlights on either side of the street, equidistant. It takes him fourteen steps to get from the door of his building to the next streetlight. Caleb considers what the most precise way to calculate the distance between each streetlight would be, with only the materials on his person. Probably he would need to walk the entire street – twice, and take the average of that – and using his average stride length, he’d get a good average distance. However, that did assume that his strides were consistent, so maybe–

“Caleb?”

He stops, loses his count, and the world – hollow still in his chest, the overcast sky, the streetlights on the tarmac – comes rushing back in, and he has one hand out before he knows he’s doing it, one going into his coat pocket, and only then registers that he’s standing outside the Darrington Building. It takes him a moment to place the voice, and for his eyes to focus, and there – of course, just his luck – sitting on the steps of the building is Beauregard, in jeans and flannel, frowning at him. 

Caleb breathes in, trying not to feel the way it rushes through him, and lowers his hand. “Beauregard. Why are you out here?”

“I could ask you the same question, dude.” She shifts over on the concrete steps, pats the spot next to her. Caleb hesitates, then decides walking over will save him from answering, so he does, joining her. The steps are cold, even through his coat. His legs are getting chilly. How Beauregard is out here in an unbuttoned shirt, of all things, he will never understand. “Anyway,” she’s saying, and he looks away, because she’s watching him with too-sharp eyes, “Came down to walk Yasha out, she just left a while ago. Thought I’d sit for a bit.” 

A distant part of Caleb’s brain files away the information about Yasha being at Beau’s till one fucking a.m., because that’s something he hasn’t heard before. Most of him, though, is focusing on the large empty space in his chest, and maybe the space is growing, and it will take over all of him from the inside, he isn’t sure. He presses his palms against the concrete – cold, sharp, cutting in – and breathes. When he looks up, Beauregard’s sharp eyes are still on him, and she’s frowning. 

“Nightmares, huh.” 

It doesn’t sound like she’s asking a question, but Caleb says, “Ja,” anyway. 

There’s a few moments of silence then, and Caleb glances at his watch – 01:24 – and braces his hands harder against the concrete, and doesn’t look at Beauregard. 

Beauregard’s shoulder knocks against his. “Wanna talk about it?” Caleb opens his mouth to answer, to say something like No, it's fine, but before he can respond, Beauregard’s shoulder pushes against his again, and doesn’t let up. “And don’t fucking lie to me and say some bullshit about being okay, or whatever your dumbass brain has convinced you I want to hear, Widogast.” 

Startled, the only thing Caleb can do is laugh, and he thinks he feels it echoing in the hollow of his torso. “Is it—am I, ah, that predictable?” he asks, because it’s easier than answering. 

“Nah,” Beauregard says, then after a moment, “You’re just irritatingly good at self-loathing.” Her hand lands on his shoulder, squeezes, and that takes the bite out of the words. They stay like that for a moment, Caleb still looking out into the middle distance, before Beau huffs. “Come on, dude, this isn’t helping anyone. C’mere.” It takes a moment for him to realise what’s happening, and by the time he has, Beau’s arm is around his shoulders and is pulling him closer, till his head is on her shoulder. Caleb breathes in, out, and tries to relax into it. 

A few breaths later (Caleb twists his head to check the time, _01:27)_ , Caleb realises that the middle distance is starting to fill up with the hazy afterimages of his dreams, smoke and fear, and he decides Beau might, perhaps, have a point. 

“The dream,” he says, and he feels Beau shift towards him. “It, ah, it is one of those that I have often. I am standing outside a burning house, and I think, okay, it’s the house my parents lived in.” Caleb can _feel_ his voice ringing through the hollow in his chest, vibrating, but it feels like now he’s started he can’t stop the words. “Except—except I go towards the house, _ja_? I cover my nose and mouth and I go into the smoke, and it isn’t in Blumenthal anymore, it’s _here_ , and I am in one of the residency halls, or this building here, or—” He pauses here, realises his fingers have found his forearms, and digs in, because tonight it had been none of those, instead it had been—

Beau’s arm around him tightens. “Or what, Caleb?”

“Or Veth and Yeza’s flat,” he finishes, flatly. The sentence doesn’t do justice to the dream – the burning sunshine-yellow curtains in their living room, the crunching of broken beakers under his feet, the _bodies_ – but he thinks Beau can fill in those gaps for herself. “So. It is on fire, and everyone is dead, and I find them, and. That is that.”

He hears Beau exhale. “Jesus, man. That’s… that fucking sucks.”

“ _Ja_.” Caleb says, because she’s right, it does suck. Beau’s arm is still around him, and he exhales, and lets himself relax into her a little more. He breathes again, and he thinks the hole in his chest is a bit smaller, more of the air is making it into his actual lungs. “Well, Beauregard, I have talked about it. Was that meant to help?”

Beau huffs something like a laugh. “Fuck if I know, man. Sorrow shared is sorrow halved, or something, y'know?” Caleb supposes he does know. “Hey, Veth is okay, you know. We can go over there first thing in the morning and check if you like. But she’ll be okay. Okay?”

The _we_ makes Caleb warm slightly, as does the reassurance, as hard as it is to believe. “ _Ja_ , okay.” 

“Now come on. While I’m fine sitting out here for all of eternity, your squishy ass must be freezing, and Veth will fucking kill me if I let you get a cold or something.” Beau untangles herself from him, gets to her feet, and is holding out a hand to help him out before he really knows what’s happening. He takes the hand, lets her pull him up, but before he can so much as open his mouth to say goodnight, Beau is fishing out keys and unlocking the door into the Darrington House, and holding it open. 

Caleb blinks. “Beauregard, what—” 

“Oh, come on. You’re not going to go back to sleep if you go back, so instead of being sad on your own, you can, I dunno, come be sad at mine and I’ll stop you getting too lost in that fucked-up brain of yours.” 

Caleb swallows down the refusal that’s on the tip of his tongue, and considers Beauregard, who’s giving him a half-smile, her topknot a complete mess and her flannel wrongly buttoned, and realises that, as she so often is, she is fucking right. And maybe, _maybe_ , he can let himself have this. “Okay,” he manages. 

Beauregard grins, gestures to the door. “After you.” 

Caleb steps into the Darrington House, and the door shuts behind the two of them. 

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this fic (& the whole series) is from _twin size mattress_ by the front bottoms, which I heard on this excellent [empire siblings spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61kXTUAfrS3uIGX4wJKr6r?si=vhvC8jX7Rz-NIojW1CIZ1A). 
> 
> you can find me yelling about critical role & other things on [tumblr](https://songofwizardry.tumblr.com/).
> 
> the response to the first fic in this series was so much more than I expected, so this is now a series! thank you for your comments, and there's still more to come. I love these two so much.


End file.
